NEWS ROUNDUP

Proposal to expand management of wolves opposed A proposed "memorandum of understanding" drafted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposes involving other agencies in the management of Mexican gray wolves. Such a move would "lower the service's leadership in wolf recovery, and give more life-and-death power over the wolves to interests more directly responsive to the livestock industry," according to Michael Robinson, a Silver City staffer with the Center for Biological Diversity...Utah, Feds Continue To Stonewall Public On Phantom Highways Controversy The state of Utah and the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) continue to withhold documents from the public concerning their supposedly "open process" for resolving claims to disputed dirt tracks across Utah, conservationist groups charged today. The charge came as two of the groups, the Southern Utah Wilderness Society (SUWA) and The Wilderness Society, lodged a formal appeal last week with the Interior Department over a decision by BLM's Utah office to withhold information concerning jeep tracks and cattle paths claimed as constructed highways by Utah under the repealed, Civil War-era law known as R.S. 2477...11 dams on Emigrant fix-up list Stanislaus National Forest Supervisor Tom Quinn, taking his turn in one of his forest's longest-running controversies, has decided to permit maintenance of 11 Emigrant Wilderness check dams while letting seven others deteriorate over time. Letting those seven go "moves the Emigrant Wilderness, as a whole, towards a more pristine condition," Quinn wrote in his Record of Decision, which the Forest Service published Tuesday...'Healthy Forests Act' needs careful watch, enviros say The Healthy Forest Restoration Act ought to be given a chance to work "under careful scrutiny" Western Colorado Congress and Colorado photographer John Fielder said. President Bush this month signed the measure that significantly changes the way some of the nation's most fire- threatened forests will be managed. The new law, which was carried by U.S. Rep. Scott McInnis, whose 3rd Congressional District is among the most forested in the nation, isn't what environmental organizations most wanted...Susanville timber mill closing This city is losing a major employer and its last timber mill. Sierra Pacific Industries announced Tuesday that it will close its 39-year-old sawmill by the end of the first quarter of 2004. The company cited the loss of government timber supplies and competition from foreign imports as reasons for the closure. The move will affect about 150 workers, SPI spokesman Ed Bond said. Workers at the mill make an average hourly wage of $18.30...Beetles threaten thousands of acres of pinyon trees Colorado's Roaring Fork Valley is vulnerable to a beetle infestation that could wipe out pinyon trees covering thousands of acres, according to a forestry expert. John Denison, district forester for the Colorado State Forest Service, said that conditions in the scenic valley make the pinyon susceptible to the Ips beetle. He estimated that 80 percent of the trees could die...Judge rules for listing orcas as endangered A federal judge yesterday struck down the Bush administration's decision not to protect Puget Sound orcas under the Endangered Species Act, chastising federal officials for failing to consider the "best available science." The U.S. District Court ruling was a major victory for environmentalists. The National Marine Fisheries Service had justified its June 2002 decision by saying that even if orcas that reside in the Sound and nearby waters disappeared, their place could be taken by far-ranging transient orcas that sometimes visit...Column: The Cartoonist Who Fought Dams Hard In George Fisher's world, the dam-building, river-straightening, concrete-addicted nature destroyers of the Army Corps of Engineers wore dark sunglasses, knee boots, impossibly tight pants and dorky pith helmets emblazoned with his unofficial motto for the agency: "Keep Busy." They carried rolled-up blueprints, drove menacing dredges with ferociously pointy teeth and drooled over free-flowing streams like dirty old men ogling young virgins. When they died, they arrived at the Pearly Gates armed with channelization plans for the Kingdom of Heaven and recoiled at the picturesque river valleys God had let fester there...Column: Global Warming is Likely to Cause Huge Climatic Changes -- and Possibly a New Ice Age What killed the saber-toothed tiger, the mastodon and the mammoth, formidable animals that were on top of the food chain in North America 20,000 years ago? Was it fierce Stone Age hunters as has commonly been assumed, or the little-studied but very real phenomenon of abrupt climate change? This question is not just of academic interest, to be debated by pipe-smoking professors at conferences. The rapid natural climate changes at the end of the Ice Age could be mirrored by man-made global warming in the 21st century, leading to devastating consequences for the planet's biodiversity and the human race itself...Baby condor makes historic flight in Grand Canyon Arizona's first baby condor in recorded history made its first flight November 5 when it glided 500 feet to the ground from its nest on a cliff located in a remote area of the Grand Canyon. "The significance of the first wild-hatched California condor in Arizona is tremendous. While captive-bred condors have exceeded our expectations, it is this chick and others like it in the future that will ensure condor recovery in Arizona," Arizona Game and Fish director Duane Shroufe said...City Officials Angry Over Fire Prevention Delays City officials in San Bernardino, Calif., say the U.S. Fish and Wildlife agency's concerns about endangered species delayed a federally funded fire prevention program for seven years and led directly to the disastrous fires there in October. According to city officials, philosophical problems among some biologists, environmentalists and other agencies delayed approved measures to prevent fires from being enacted. City officials also claim that they set aside $500,000 for a program meant to thin a number of trees in problem areas identified in a 1995 survey, but not one square foot of forestry was thinned. According to a congressional investigation, more than half of all federal projects proposed to reduce the literal fuel to the fires never get implemented, including several projects that may have limited the scope of this fall's California wildfires. Those fires burnt 750,000 acres, destroyed 3,640 homes, killed 22 people and countless wildlife and are estimated to have cost $10 billion in damage...Lawmaker calls for investigation of Wildlife Service over fires Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Corona, wants Congress to investigate why the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Carlsbad office reportedly delayed prescribed burns in San Bernardino County forest areas scorched in the October wildfires. California Department of Forestry Chief Tom O'Keefe told the Riverside Press-Enterprise for a story published Tuesday that the Fish and Wildlife Service opposed prescribed fires that might have helped save plant and animal habitats. "The U.S Fish and Wildlife policy of obstructionism contributed to the most devastating wildfires the state of California has ever seen," Calvert said in a statement Wednesday. "I have every intention of investigating their role in delaying and preventing prescribed fires that could have saved businesses, homes and lives."...Duck slaughter found Federal wildlife officials want to know who killed 35 wild ducks and dumped them, without cleaning them or saving any of the meat, beside Deer Creek Road near East Missoula. Rick Branzell, a special agent with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, discovered the ducks tossed in a snowbank beside the road Wednesday afternoon after receiving a tip from a Missoula County snowplow driver. The discarded ducks could represent several possible violations of state and federal wildlife laws, according to Branzell...Bald eagle closures begin in December Recreational activities are being temporarily limited at 13 locations near Arizona waterways beginning in December in an effort to protect nesting bald eagles. Arizona Game and Fish Department biologists say bald eagles start rebuilding nests in December in preparation for laying eggs. Land and wildlife management agencies enact the seasonal breeding area closures from December through June at locations on Tonto Creek, the Salt and Verde rivers, as well as Alamo, Pleasant, Becker, Lynx and Luna lakes...Crowing, howling greet return of wolves to West The sound of success pierces the cold, still air. Howling gray wolves announce their dominance over the food chain stretching from Yellowstone National Park's Lamar Valley to Montana less than a decade after wildlife biologists returned them to their traditional habitat. Bringing wolves back from the brink of extinction is being hailed as an ecological triumph, so much so that the federal government reclassified the animal this year from "endangered" to "threatened." The next step toward removal from the protected species list is for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to transfer responsibility for wolf management to game officials in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, possibly late next year. The livestock industry and hunters, who have simmered as the wolf population soared from 31 in the mid-1990s to 750, say they can't wait for return of local control. On the other side, environmental groups fear that a lack of federal oversight will mean a return to the "shoot, shovel and shut up" mindset that nearly caused the wolf's demise...Park Service board concludes probe of fatal bear attack on California couple A panel that investigated the deadly bear attack on a California couple in Katmai National Park and Preserve last October is recommending a review of the park's camping and bear management policies, federal officials said Wednesday. The Technical Board of Investigation has completed its inquiry in the deaths of Malibu, Calif., bear activists Timothy Treadwell and Amie Huguenard and plans to submit its final report to National Park Service officials within a week. The four-page report also sums up likely contributing factors in the deaths of Treadwell, 46, a wildlife author who spent the past 13 summers tracking brown bears at the Alaska Peninsula park, and Huguenard, 37, who joined him in recent years. Treadwell was known and sometimes criticized for getting too chummy with brown bears - as coastal grizzlies are called in Alaska - without any kind of protection such as bear spray...Last-minute ruling prompts scramble on Yellowstone's opening day Carol Steinhauer was sputtering mad Wednesday morning. The Indiana woman's long-awaited two-week vacation in Yellowstone National Park had been disrupted, and she wanted somebody to pay. "This is a $5,000 vacation," she said as she pulled off her snowmobile helmet and began looking for a way to enter the park, a place that had been closed to unescorted snowmobilers like herself and her husband, Paul, just 12 hours earlier. "I'd like to send the bill to the senator who came up with this," she said. "Or the judge. Or the tree huggers."...Park ruling sparks dismay Norm Brunel of Manitoba, Canada, waited patiently in the cold morning darkness for the park to officially open. When it did, he presented a permit and fee receipt he'd purchased a month earlier, which were to have gained him admittance. Instead, he was told they were no longer valid. "No matter what I have," he said in frustration, "I can't go into the park, not without going out and hiring a guide. I drove 1,200 miles for this."...NYT Editorial: Banishing Snowmobiles n a federal courtroom in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, Judge Emmet Sullivan declared a halt to the Bush administration's plan to continue and indeed expand snowmobiling in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. His ruling, which reinstates a Clinton-administration plan to phase out the snowmobiles, is a victory for the parks, their wildlife and the visitors who come to enjoy both. Beyond that, it is a resounding rebuke to the Bush administration, whose eagerness to satisfy a narrow political constituency caused it to violate its statutory obligation to protect the parks from degradation and to leave them, as the law commands, "unimpaired" for future generations. That snowmobiles impaired the parks was never much in doubt -- not to the Park Service employees who hated President Bush's plan; not to the public, whose comments reflected overwhelming disapproval for the plan; and not to the government's own scientists, who concluded that even the newer, quieter snowmobiles the administration had promoted as the ultimate compromise would foul the air and disrupt animal life...Snowmobile Community Appeals District of Columbia Court Opinion on Yellowstone The Snowmobile Community will immediately appeal an opinion issued by U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by Judge Emmet Sullivan, blocking the 2003 Yellowstone National Park Winter Use Plan. The State of Wyoming and the National Park Service (NPS) are expected to join the appeal. The Snowmobile Community, including individuals and small business owners in the Yellowstone gateway communities, snowmobile enthusiast organizations, and snowmobile manufacturers through the International Snowmobile Manufacturers Association (ISMA), will seek an emergency stay of the Judge's ruling. The stay requests that the opinion not be implemented while the case is being appealed...Sled ruling hits home to outfitters Early Wednesday morning Jackson Hole Snowmobile Tours office manager Stacey Chapman called two people and told them that because of a judge's ruling Tuesday night they would not be able to rent snowmobiles. "They were irate," said Chapman, who is the office manager. "They did not understand. That's how it's going to be. We are going to have a lot of angry people." Wyoming officials and snowmobile industry attorneys are trying to keep Chapman from having to speak with more angry customers. Both are working to overturn U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan's ruling that cuts in half the number of snowmobiles allowed in Yellowstone and Grand Teton this winter and would eliminate snowmobiles from the park next winter...Waiting List For Grand Canyon Raft Trips Frozen The National Park Service has imposed a freeze on adding new names to the waiting list for permits to raft through the Grand Canyon. There are now more than 8,000 people on the list for self-guided rafting trips through the park. Those at the end of the list will have to wait 20 years to make the trip down the Colorado River...Report stresses animal safety: Vehicles must be prevented from running over imperiled species during a desert race The U.S. Defense Department will have to take steps to prevent robotic vehicles from running over desert tortoises and other imperiled species when it hosts a race from Barstow to Las Vegas, a report issued Wednesday said. While it is anticipated that few, if any, desert tortoises would be killed or injured, tortoise monitors will be required to sweep the route before the race and move any reptiles 100 feet off the course, the Bureau of Land Management report said...Lawns and life could get ugly if lake keeps falling Daily life in the Las Vegas Valley could become increasingly challenging if Lake Mead continues its decline, dipping below 1,125 feet above sea level in 2005 and pushing the region into a drought emergency, the most severe of the region's three drought categories. Lawn watering could be banned. Water rates could increase for the second time in 18 months. Golf courses might have to operate with less water...Regulators say protecting Tahoe Basin a priority Preventing a major wildfire from devastating the Lake Tahoe Basin and fouling its sensitive environment for years must be the area’s top priority, land-use regulators decided Wednesday. Governors of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency reviewed a $26.5 million plan to begin thinning trees and taking other precautions in fire-prone forests along the dangerous ribbon of landscape where forests abut populated communities...Editorial: Federal land sales While water officials throughout the West continue to grapple with the implications of our record-setting drought, at least there's some good news from Washington. The Bush administration has said it will neither halt nor slow the pace of public land sales in Southern Nevada. At a meeting Friday in Las Vegas of the agencies that receive water from the Colorado River, Assistant Interior Secretary Bennett Raley said, "The federal government is not going to play a role in where (people) can and should live. That's a local issue, not a federal issue." And that's the appropriate response. Washington bureaucrats have no business meddling in local planning and zoning decisions -- notwithstanding the "Livable Communities Initiative," a scheme hatched by former Vice President Al Gore in 1999 to have the federal government buy up undeveloped land and make it off-limits for future homes or businesses...The Killing Hills Martin didn't find a sympathetic ear in Mike Roach, conservation officer for the Division of Wildlife Resources. Roach investigated the incident, ruled it a legal kill and said Martin had no recourse against the offending hunter. The problem, said Roach, is that landowners made no attempt to distinguish their property lines from the public land that backs up against the Olympus Cove neighborhood. And he can't enforce a trespassing complaint unless fences were erected or signs posted...Bush hears Ducks Unlimited concerns With one third of the waterfowl hunters answering a Ducks Unlimited survey saying success is below average so far this season, DU president John Tomke and others met last week with President Bush. Tomke's concern comes from a 2001 Supreme Court decision that, if broadly interpreted, could eliminate long-standing protection of wetlands and small bodies of water under the Clean Water Act. During the meeting, Tomke also remarked that in recent months more than 20,000 letters have been sent to the White House and other key decision makers in Washington by DU members and supporters on this issue...Cheney-Cornyn pheasant hunt drawing slings and arrows When Dick Cheney and a hunting party that included Sen. John Cornyn and several other Texas Republicans bagged hundreds of pheasants at a private game reserve in Pennsylvania last week, animal-rights activists denounced it as a slaughter. They were especially outraged that the vice president shot more than 70. But Mr. Cornyn said Wednesday that the birds had a sporting chance, even if they were farm-raised and released from nets for the hunters. "It was a good shoot," said Mr. Cornyn, who figures he shot dozens of pheasants himself...Water feud stirs Texas water policy review A heated debate in Texas over a proposal to pump groundwater from state lands for commercial sale is spurring state officials to take another look at a sacred 100-year-old water policy often called "the biggest straw wins." The so-called rule of capture gives a landowner the right to pump an unlimited amount of groundwater by tapping into an underlying aquifer. The owner is not liable for injury to his neighbor because of excessive pumping unless it's intentional. The Texas Supreme Court as recently as four years ago upheld the rule based on an English law that has been modified in most other states because the pumping can exhaust the groundwater supply if it's not naturally recharged...Editorial: Where tradition, law collide On Dec. 8, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review a Colorado court's decision upholding traditional rights of land-grant heirs to use southern Colorado's Taylor Ranch for grazing and other uses. That may be the end of the legal road - but unless cool heads prevail, the rancor generated by the long-running dispute may continue to simmer. The four-decade battle highlighted a clash between two very different legal systems: absolutist concepts of property rights rooted in Anglo-Saxon law and communal rights as practiced under Spanish and Mexican colonial land grants that were used to lure settlers to the Southwest...Tempers flare in property dispute It was shaping up as the Upshur County Land War and no one knew what to expect. Seven police, sheriff and highway patrol cars were lined up out front and folks inside were furious at what could happen to them. "You can bet there are guns in there," said Sylvia Mobley, who drove over from Shreveport, La., to see if there was any substance to the threat of the state of Texas confiscating property that had been in her family for 153 years...State Assaults Private Property In his new book, Mugged By The State: Outrageous Government Assaults on Ordinary People and Their Property, published by Regnery, a sister company of HUMAN EVENTS, Randall Fitzgerald describes how common, ordinary American citizens have been subjected to government abuse. Fitzgerald, a veteran journalist, provides many riveting examples of ranchers, homeowners and small businessmen who have encountered the wrath of bureaucrats and regulators, who, in the zeal of enforcing cumbersome government regulations, have seized homes, private property, cars, bank accounts, and closed down businesses in the interest of "public safety" and the "public good." U.S. gets trade-pact deal with four nations The Bush administration reached a free-trade agreement yesterday with four Central American countries. The accord — reached just weeks before the 10th anniversary of the North American Free Trade Agreement — would allow more than 80 percent of U.S. consumer and industrial products into Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Honduras duty-free as soon as it went into force. That figure would rise to 85 percent within five years and 100 percent in a decade. U.S. agricultural products would take considerably longer — up to 18 years — to reach duty-free status, largely because U.S. trade negotiators insisted on protecting the American sugar market from Central American exports...Lawsuit could affect cattle producers A trial in federal court scheduled for Jan. 12 in Montgomery, Ala., could have a huge impact on Nebraska cattle producers, said Steve Cady, executive director of Organization for Competitive Markets, which is based in Lincoln. According to Cady, the trial, know as "Pickett vs. IBP," is the first class action case ever brought by producers against beef packers over the issue of captive supply...Sheriff: Roaming horses causing a problem Open range areas along U.S. Highway 87 south of Havre have been problematic for motorists using the highway, Hill County Sheriff Greg Szudera said. The Sheriff's Office has received numerous complaints about livestock on or near the highway, and two women were hospitalized Saturday after their car collided with a horse. The horse was killed. The accident has prompted local law enforcement and the State Department of Livestock to search for ways to better enforce animal grazing laws. Szudera and state livestock detective Dan Campbell have been meeting to figure out what recourse the Sheriff's Office has under somewhat confusing state laws...Mad cow variant kills blood donor and a recipient The British government announced Wednesday the first reported case of a person dying from the human form of mad cow disease after a blood transfusion from an infected donor. Health Secretary John Reid told Parliament it was not possible to determine whether the transfusion recipient contracted the fatal brain-wasting illness from the donor or whether the two were independently infected. But it was the first report supporting the idea the disease might be transmitted by blood transfusions...Kids’ video gets good response An educational children’s video on the cowboy way of life, which was partially filmed in the Laramie area, has received an overwhelming response nationwide, one of its producers said. “All About Cowboys” was filmed entirely in Wyoming and is designed to educate children on Western history by portraying and comparing the 1800s cowboy culture with today’s ranching techniques and rodeo showmanship. The video touches on the history of cowboy culture, tells what it’s like to be a cowboy today, and features Cheyenne Frontier Days rodeo action, trick riders, a world-class trick roper and a 7-year-old cowboy with his pony...The West Under Cover: Haycox wrote off into the sunset Ernest Hemingway once said he bought a copy of the Saturday Evening Post whenever it had a story by Ernest Haycox. For years the Spur award, given annually by the Western Writers of America, was known as the "Erny," in honor of Haycox. His short story, "Stage to Lordsburg," was made into "Stagecoach," the John Ford movie that made John Wayne famous. Some critics (including this one) will tell you his 1943 novel, Bugles in the Afternoon, with its avoidance of mythology and its insistence on psychological correctness, is among the best Western books ever written...